Introducing our 2025 Poets
A Belle Point catalog update
[Please note that these manuscripts were acquired before our most recent reading period; we are still working through submissions from summer 2024 and will not announce those results until all submissions have received a response.]
We have been extra busy over here settling into our new distribution setup and preparing our next round of releases. As we complete our 2024 poetry titles and continue to work through submissions for 2026, we’re thrilled to announce our next slate of Belle Point poets. In 2025, we will publish five new collections.
Benjamin Morris (MS/LA): The Singing River (February)
Ben is a longtime supporter of the press, and he also contributed to our Mid/South Sonnets anthology. The Singing River is a moving and formally diverse meditation rooted in the Mississippi Gulf Coast; it will kick off our 2025 lineup as Mardi Gras prepares to give way to Lent this winter. Keep an eye out for the cover reveal later this month!
A native of Mississippi, Benjamin Morris is the author of Coronary (Fitzgerald Letterpress, 2011), Hattiesburg, Mississippi: A History of the Hub City (Arcadia/History Press, 2014), and Ecotone (Antenna, 2017). He holds an MSc in English Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Edinburgh, and among other honors has received a Pushcart nomination, the Academy of American Poets Prize from Duke University, and the Chancellor’s Medal for Poetry from the University of Cambridge, where he earned his Ph.D. The recipient of academic and creative fellowships from the Mississippi Arts Commission and Tulane University, his writing appears regularly in the United States and Europe. He lives in New Orleans.
Damien Uriah (WA/OK): Birds I Cannot Name (April)
We are especially excited as a press to have connected with another poet so close to home—Damien lives practically down the road in an area very familiar to us, so we’re thrilled to get to make a home for this reflective debut. A sonnet from Birds I Cannot Name also appeared in Mid/South Sonnets.
Damien Uriah is a poet, teacher, regenerative farmer, and musician. Their work can be found in Cimarron Review, Hawaii Pacific Review, Thrush, Heron Tree, About Place Journal, and many other publications. Damien grew up on the Cherokee Nation side of the Ozark mountains and has lived, written, and worked in various places, including in their second land-love, the Pacific Northwest. Currently a professor of writing at the University of Arkansas-Fort Smith, Damien lives with his wife and many plants and animals on a small eco-farm near his childhood home in Northeastern Oklahoma.
Chera Hammons (TX): Salvage List (June)
We’re back to Texas again with the spectacular poet Chera Hammons. Salvage List maps out an intimate experience of chronic illness alongside reflections of place and loving relationships. While you’re waiting for her next book, check out Maps of Injury from Sundress Publications.
Chera Hammons is a recipient of poetry awards through PEN Texas and the Texas Institute of Letters. Her work appears in Pleiades, Poetry, Rattle, The Southern Review, The Sun, The Texas Observer, and elsewhere, and has been featured on The Slowdown. She holds an MFA from Goddard College and formerly served as the Writer-in-Residence at West Texas A&M University. She lives in the Texas Panhandle.
Christian Anton Gerard (TN/AR): Devil-May-Care (August)
Christian was part of Belle Point from the beginning with both some poems in our first Mid/South Anthology and a reading at our first-ever press event here in Fort Smith. As with Damien, we’re very happy to continue growing our local presence through the community closest to our home and our hearts.
Christian Anton Gerard builds hot rods, customizes vintage ski boats, works wood, and loves the 1980s and 90s. When he is not imaginatively touring the Caribbean islands and the European countryside searching for the vacation houses where he imagines writing more books and driving winding roads in vintage sports cars, he lives in Fort Smith, Arkansas. Gerard is a recent Artists360 grant recipient, and his two previous books are Holdfast (C&R Press, 2017) and Wilmot Here, Collect for Stella (WordTech, 2014).
Shome Dasgupta (LA): Cajun South Brown Folk (October)
Readers familiar with our catalog will know Shome is prolific, and we couldn’t be happier to move into poetry with this next collection in Fall 2025. If you’re new to Shome’s work, you should order Atchafalaya Darling immediately.
Shome Dasgupta is the author of The Seagull And The Urn (HarperCollins India), and most recently, a short story collection Atchafalaya Darling (Belle Point Press), the novels The Muu-Antiques (Malarkey Books) and Tentacles Numbing (Thirty West), a prose collection Histories Of Memories (Belle Point Press), and a poetry collection Iron Oxide (Assure Press). His book i am here And You Are Gone won the 2010 OW Press Fiction Contest. His writing has appeared in McSweeney's Internet Tendency, New Orleans Review, The Emerson Review, Jabberwock Review, American Book Review, Arkansas Review, Magma Poetry, and elsewhere. His fiction and poetry have been anthologized in Best Small Fictions, The &Now Awards 2: The Best Innovative Writing, and Poetic Voices Without Borders 2. His writing has been longlisted for The Leapfrog Global Fiction Prize, and he was a finalist for The Voyage YA First Chapters Contest. His work has been featured as a storySouth Million Writers Award Notable Story, and his stories and poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best Small Fictions, Best Of The Net, and Best Microfiction. He lives in Lafayette, LA and can be found at www.shomedome.com and @laughingyeti.
In a time when so much seems precarious, we’re grateful for the stabilizing power of poetry. We’re looking forward to sharing these books with you in the coming year, but if you’re looking for more options in the meantime, feel free to peruse our full poetry catalog here.
As always, thanks for sticking around.